Personal Coaching Consumer Ratings for Coaching Programs

Business coaching is the mother and father of the coaching and personal development industry. It was the beginning of the modern schools of personal development and its techniques and practices are evident in all other forms of personal development.

From coaches who deal with large multinational organizations to ones who specialize in small businesses and “mom and pop” outlets, business coaching takes many forms. And although engaging an effective business coach can be a difficult task, understanding some of the aspects of the coaching curriculum can help in making such an important decision. Keep in mind that all business coaches will offer similar services; however, coaching curriculums are often adjusted simply for scale of delivery.

Core Elements of Coaching

All business coaching will focus on the core elements of communication, leadership, and strategic thinking. And all of these elements will contain in varying measures the broader subjects of motivation, psychology, sociology, business science, and behaviorism. Many of these subjects might seem to be unlikely elements, but they all revolve around the tried-and-tested methods developed by human resource specialists. Leadership, for example, is one of the most poorly understood qualities in modern business.

In some business cultures, there has been a traditional paradigm of authoritarian leadership, and management specialists have identified this type of leadership as being very detrimental to an organization’s health and adaptability. Studies based on the work of Demming and Tahiti Ono, of Toyota Production System fame, have demonstrated that an organization’s ability to shift quickly in response to demand and customer needs is its most crucial attribute. Authoritarian leadership is poorly equipped to do this and as such led to the success that some businesses who “think outside the box” have enjoyed for the last quarter century. Leadership is a key skill lacking in many businesses, worldwide.

The Importance of Communication

Business coaches offer a number of core-skill developments in the area of communication. Businesses need to adapt to quickly changing environments; the key to doing this effectively is to develop effective communications between people. It has been studied extensively and has been demonstrated that there is a lack of key communication between managers and staff at almost all levels of many major organizations, and small business too often lack the clarity of communication necessary to develop success.

Core skills like these can only be taught by coaches who understand the importance of communication. And finding a coach who offers these core skills to you and your employees is going to have a massive impact on your business. The use of coaches in business continues to increase in all sectors and sizes of business. And more and more people are finding that the development of their staff needs to include not only professional qualifications, but also should include less ephemeral things such as coaching and mentoring.

The life-coaching market has exploded in recent years as the need for good, efficient coaching has increased and so has the number of people who offer coaching services. If you decide that coaching is for you, finding the right life coach is essential, and with the enormous number of coaches available, it’s not always an easy task.

Choosing the right coach can be difficult because there isn’t a set of standard criteria that apply to all people at all times. Your needs are likely to be different from anyone else’s, and while all coaches offer somewhat similar services, the way they deliver those services should be tailored to each individual’s needs.

Invest Your Time

One of the keys to choosing the right coach is to invest a little time to develop a good set of personal criteria to help you “vet” prospective coaches. A three-stage approach usually works well, in that it enables you to sift through a number of coaches quickly and efficiently to ensure that you have found the right one.

Stage 1: The first stage is to develop a list of what you expect from the coaching experience. Once you know what you want to achieve and how you would like to achieve it, it’s time to search the Internet for life coaches. Their Web page will focus on the services they offer, and give you insight into the values and philosophies they adhere to. Compare each coach’s services and philosophies with your list and see if they are similar.

Remember: Coaching is a two-way street and if you don’t share the same values and broad goals as your coach, your success with this particular coach will be limited.

Gather As Much Information As Possible

Stage 2: After browsing the websites, the next stage is to order brochures and information from the coaches you “short listed.” Give yourself time to thoroughly review the information you receive to allow you to have a clear picture of the differences between each coach on your short list, and then cut your list in half.

Stage 3: Once you have your final list of prospective coaches, it’s a good idea to have some “face time” with them to see if the “chemistry” between you works and if they have the ability to connect with you in the right way. Many coaches offer free “taster” sessions, or have seminars and lectures to showcase what they can offer you as a coach.

While searching for a life coach may seem very time consuming, it’s essential to invest time right at the start to find the right coach for you and to maximize the lasting benefits of coaching.

How can you become a great business coach? This is a difficult question to answer. Business coaches, in general, possess a great variety of skills and experiences which all add up to each individual coach’s success. However, they all possess a common set of attributes that enables them to perform well and effect real change in the lives of clients they engage with. It is important that you recognize these qualities if you decide to pursue a career in business coaching, or if you are thinking about engaging a coach.

A business coach works toward developing individual skills and effective teams. Therefore, the most important quality a good coach possesses is communication. He or she will have to communicate with a great variety of people, some are technically skilled, others are responsible for business strategy, and others have already led and managed others. Business coaches not only have to engender respect, they also have to be able to articulate often difficult concepts to a broad range of people. Since they will be developing these very skills in the people they work with, they should demonstrate what they teach every step of the way.

Nontraditional Teaching Methods

Coaches teach in a nontraditional way, foregoing curriculum-based learning for a more intricate and successful approach that involves personally engaging with small groups and individuals. It takes serious leadership skills to be able to direct the psychology of others. As such, the key leadership attributes of goal-setting and effecting change must come a very close second to the ability to communicate effectively. Business coaches should clearly demonstrate that they have the required leadership skills to be able to effect wide-ranging changes in both organizational culture and in individuals.

Must-Have Qualities

There are many attributes that contribute to effective coaching. With communication skills at the top of the list, patience and confidence are other important qualities. A good coach will be able to recognize when a person or group is ready to move on to other levels of training and self-learning, and will be patient and nurturing in all circumstances. Unlike traditional teaching where there is a time limit imposed by a curriculum, mentoring and coaching relies on self-discovery and “guided” learning. Coaches need to have confidence in their own abilities, and should be able to recognize when clients have absorbed the necessary skills and attributes of leadership and are ready to move on successfully.

This list of must-have qualities gives a clear idea of the type of personality who will make a good business coach. (Keep in mind that there are many coaches who do not have these skills.) Therefore it is important to look for these attributes if you are engaging a coach, or to realize that these are the kind of qualities you must possess if you are going to make a good coach. Without these key attributes it is unlikely that you will be effective in delivering top-quality coaching to clients. And remember: Always practice what you preach.

As the author of this blog reminds us, Happy Father’s day is a great opportunity to show thanks to the greatest coaches around, fathers! Yesterday, as you celebrated Father’s Day, I hope that you took the time to appreciate and give thanks to your own Dad. For many of us, Dads are the greatest coaches that we will ever have in our entire lives. And, we should show that appreciation for them on a daily basis. Happy Father’s Day!

Coaching comes in all shapes and sizes. The sheer array of the types of coaching now offered (many different types to suit all areas of development) is testament to the explosive growth the industry has experienced over the last twenty years. So if you’ve decided to focus on developing your personal skills, making the right choice can be difficult.

One of the fundamental choices available to you is one-on-one coaching versus a group coaching course. There are many differences between these types of coaching and in the type of experiences you will have with each. However, both types of coaching have a lot to offer; the choice should be made on where you will get the maximum benefit.

What Individual Coaching Can Do for Me

Individual coaching is based around a strong relationship between the coach and the individual, and demands a strong interaction between both parties. It includes a great deal of “face time,” often in both the office and in situations requiring social interaction. The complete experience is very much a free flow of information to and therapy for the individual and is designed to be highly tailored to the individual’s needs.

At times the individual coaching experience can seem a little overwhelming because the attention of the coach is fixed firmly on the individual .. but this is what’s needed for the end result to fully develop your skills sets.

Group Coaching and Its Benefits

Conversely the use of group coaching offers a very different experience. Joining a group allows each individual to experience a shared experience. And while the techniques and tools used by most coaches will be very similar, individuals not only are aware of how the coaching affects them; they also get to see how it’s affecting other group members. Peer-supported learning has a number of benefits; it provides a less pressured environment and the group often becomes an extended support network to reinforce the lessons and tools first introduced by the coach.

In the End It All Comes Down to Comfort Level

While some may feel that individual support offered by personal coaching exceeds the benefits of less focused group coaching, it should be noted that studies have shown peer-supported learning to be among the most effective learning and development tools used in education and development training. The choice is often highly personal, and there is no real right answer to which type of coaching is better.

Please note that if you decide on peer-supported learning, you will be expected to bear much of your soul and shortcomings to a group of strangers which is not for everyone but can be very therapeutic. Some people, however, find that they just can’t do this, and this is where personal coaching comes in. Personal coaching offers a one-on-one environment and has been shown to be a very quick process to success. However, whichever type of coaching you choose will give you the opportunity to enhance your life and your career.

Coaching as an industry has never been slow to adapt to the changing way we live our lives. And executive coaching, dealing with the very top levels of professional and personal development, has been leading the way. Engaging an executive coach is one of the most important things you will do to either enhance your own career or to allow your employees to reach their full potential.

If you are an executive or you are a business owner trying to develop your staff, time is one of your most precious commodities. However, advances in the way coaching can be delivered to meet your needs has made it possible to engage coaches who will deliver these services over the phone and, more frequently, over other types of Internet technology. These methods sometimes allow the coaching experience to better fit in with your life schedule. It’s not as if the concept of phone conferencing,,is a new one more and more board meetings are taking place through the use of sophisticated methods of telecommunications.

Advantages and Disadvantages

The major advantage for most people would be the convenience of this type of coaching since it is designed to be delivered in a way that will fit around other commitments. And as executives find the difficulty of maintaining any semblance of a work-life balance is increasing, being able to access this type of counseling on the move, or even on the way home from the office, presents a great advantage.

While some critics argue that the lack of  ‘face time’ between coaches and clients may lack some of the depth of traditional communication coaching techniques, the executive mind usually is geared to work outside of the box. Executives are unique in that they are often forced to communicate without the “personal touch,” and so will be used to and confident in using the phone and Internet in lieu of face time. Any loss of empathy or focus will be marginal when coaches are dealing with this group of people.

Augment the Experience

When you engage an executive coach, phone coaching may well be the main type of coaching you opt for. It does not, however, need to be the only type. Many coaches offer a number of ways in which they deliver their services; you may find it helps to receive most of your coaching over the phone, but you want to have a number of personal one-on-one sessions as well.

Many coaches use groups and seminars as a way of delivering your coaching needs. These methods provide an excellent chance to not only receive coaching, but also to mix with your peers and gain valuable perspective on the lessons you are learning.

You are not tied to receiving coaching in one way or another, and a good coach will be able to offer you a number of services designed to meet your needs.

Although life coaching is a relatively new area, its popularity has grown significantly. And as more and more people access life coaching, they are becoming more sophisticated in their choice of a life coach¾and in their prospective coach’s training and experience.

In the early days of the coaching industry, a few of the pioneers who led the field didn’t belong to an accredited training school, or didn’t have any particular training. In today’s market, however, it’s almost impossible to establish yourself as a coach without the right training.

Life coach training varies widely. And with so many training courses offered, it’s sometimes difficult for prospective coaches to understand the specific skills they need to develop to become effective coaches. For example, well-trained, successful life coaches use a variety of techniques to: (1) promote basic life skills in others, (2) show others how to motivate themselves to enjoy success, and (3) develop effective leadership relationships with others. (“Untrained” coaches often overlook these core skills all life coaches should offer.)

Coaching and Development Training

Life coaching “evolved” from the executive coaching industry and utilizes many of the techniques previously developed from management science and the study of leadership. Any coaching training provider should offer courses in psychology, adult development, leadership, communication, and learning techniques as being a core part of the coaching process. Further areas of study that are covered by most reputable training courses include sociology, behaviorism, and goal-setting and strategies.

All of these subjects are important to the full development of an effective coach’s abilities and the higher level of subject matter along these lines, the better the course and future coach will be. Prospective life coaches should look at the qualifications of the training program’s tutors or the organization as a whole to find out the level of expertise of those who teach these core subjects.

Coaching as a Discipline

Experience is a very important aspect of a coach’s personal attributes, and there is a great need for well- trained, experienced coaches in the marketplace. Remember: The better the course, the more effective you will become as a coach. The two most important aspects to look for in a course are the subject matter and the way it’s delivered.

More and more frequently, colleges, coaching institutions, and accredited training providers are offering their services over the Internet. While some in the industry feel that there is not enough “face” time involved to develop in-depth coaching skills, online courses do offer trainees the ability to set their own pace and to choose content that they feel is relevant to them.

There are so many life coaches to choose from that it can be a difficult and lengthy decision just to find the right one. In the past few years there has been an explosion of people offering their coaching services in every field you can imagine!  And with the growth of the Internet, the ability to connect with these coaches has become so much easier.

What should you look for in a life coach? Although accreditation is an important aspect of coaching, it doesn’t have to be the deciding factor. Many of today’s coaches have accreditation, but others have built a reputation as a life coach without submitting to any type of accredited body and they are no less effective because of it.

Before you make a decision, there are a number of other things that you should look for … and what’s extremely important to a lot of people is what I call parity. Parity is the idea that your aims and goals will coincide with the aims and goals of your coach and it is, perhaps, the most important aspect of the whole coaching experience.

Choosing the Right Coach

People engage with a life coach for a number of different reasons, and while much of what your coach will teach you is similar to the teachings of other life coaches, the way in which they teach can be very different. Some use specific tools, such as cognitive therapy to change the way you see problems and think about choices; others use a mentoring approach and coach by addressing you as an individual.

Both approaches have proven to be effective. What you need to think about is what teaching approach will benefit you the most. Many of the most effective life coaches are leaders, a skill which can be taught, but which is evident in most of the best life coaches from the start … it just comes naturally to them.

Non-Certified Versus Certified Coaches

Life coaches who do not subscribe to an accrediting body have developed a successful balance in their own lives and have a strong desire to teach the skills necessary to bring balance to others’ lives to your life!

Certified life coaches usually provide a more tried-and-tested approach. If you feel that this approach would work best for you, take some time to look into the different accreditations (there are over sixty-five different accreditations in the USA and UK from counseling and personal development to holistic accreditation).

Which One Is Best for You?

Keep in mind that the time you spend in choosing a good life coach who will add real value to your life will pay benefits further down the line. So if you feel that a certain coach can help with the problems you have identified, look at all of the services and the approach they offer and make your decision based on what is best for you not on a long list of letters after their names.

Business mentoring has become an increasingly common practice over the last twenty years as more and more managers realize that mentors can help them advance their careers. Branching out from human resource and motivational psychology fields, business mentoring offers a chance for people to undergo specific personal development to ensure that they reach their full potential in the workplace.

With the growth of academic and practical qualifications such as MBAs and similar traditional learning opportunities, there has been a growing movement that has identified the need for managers and executives to possess certain skills and attributes that are not taught in traditional educational courses.

For instance, while an MBA program will teach many important and cutting-edge business practices such as strategic management and finance, it lacks teaching key personal skills and abilities which are extremely important attributes for those at the top level of management. Focusing on initiating successful change and leadership, business mentoring offers the opportunity to increase your skills as a manager. It also helps you bring your skills to the notice of upper management … as a candidate for top positions in the company.

Mentoring As an Educational Tool

Mentoring has been associated with nontraditional learning, and its origins have been traced to the very earliest management-training studies. It offers a deeper level of training than traditional education, and provides each person with a specific type of learning experience. A successful mentor will identify a program designed to enhance all of the skills that you already possess and introduce new ways of thinking and reacting to different situations you may experience at your workplace.

Your mentor will focus on building successful relationships that will enhance your work ethic and maximize the strategic techniques that you use on a daily basis. These key skills will put you head and shoulders above your peers when it comes time for upper management to select potential candidates for advancement.

Vision, Communication, and Leadership

The ability of mentors to place you at the center of a company’s strategic vision and for you to be able to engender that vision in others is at the very heart of modern business leadership. Increasing competition is putting more and more pressure on firms to be reactive to change in a quick and innovative way … and leadership skills such as those taught by business mentors are vital to this process. The way in which a company’s vision and goals are communicated to others in an organization is seen as one of the main areas of increasing competitive performance. And business managers increasingly turn to their top personnel (to those who can get the job done and done right) to communicate those visions and goals.

Becoming the one managers turn to means that you have to accept responsibility far outside your normal role in both the workforce and in management in order to become an irreplaceable member of the team. Business mentoring is designed to help you develop those key skills of setting vision, communication, and leadership that are lacking in all other types of business education. Organizations recognize achievements of individuals by advancement … on fast track programs and management training schemes … mentoring provides insight into areas that will unlock your full potential as a leader of the future.

A Good Career Coach Can Help You Find the Job of Your Dreams!

Finding a good career coach is one of the most important steps you will take to secure the job of your dreams. And the explosion of the coaching and mentoring industry over the last few years means that you have an incredible number of career coaches to choose from.

Career coaches can be split into two distinct camps. On one hand there are coaches who deal with very specific industries such as accounting or operations management; on the other hand there are coaches who work in nonspecific fields.

Taking the First Step

One of the first decisions you need to make in order to find the right coach for you is to decide which area specific or nonspecific fits your needs. If you decide on career coaching that is specific to the industry you’re interested in, you should pay close attention to the type of accreditation they possess, and look for evidence of the coach’s professional development and experience within that specific industry. You should also pay close attention to the sort of experiences prospective coaches have had in their business lives, and how closely this relates to your own experiences.

Even if you decide on a more general coaching experience, it is still a good idea to look closely at the sort of accreditation and experience offered before choosing a coach. And, more importantly, you should find out just what kind of coaching they offer because coaching teaching methods differ widely. A good place to start is to develop a “wish list” of what you think you should be getting out of the experience and the expectations you have.

Invest Your Time Reap the Rewards

It is important to invest plenty of time and effort in choosing the right coach for both types of coaching. Many coaches advertise online and in magazines, and offer to send literature and other types of information to you on request. Get as much of this information as possible, make objective comparisons of the available coaches, and come up with a short list of candidates for further study.

Many coaches run seminars and workshops; it is a good idea to attend one of these events before making a commitment to career coaching. This will help you to get a feel for how well you would interact with them on a personal level. They will be happy to answer questions and will expect to be questioned at length on the benefits of their particular style of career coaching. Take your time in choosing the right career coach … it is an extremely important decision.

Many people especially those who take the necessary time to find the right career coach find that they quickly develop a clear set of goals, and the skills to achieve those goals, and in no time are moving up the ladder to the job of their dreams.